Drink Driving Mitigation.

If we cannot find a way to keep your licence, we will mitigate on your behalf to reduce the level of disqualification and, if appropriate, avoid a prison sentence.

As drink drive solicitors, we often find ourselves sitting in court listening to mitigation from defendants who decide to represent themselves, or even solicitors on behalf of a client. Some of the mitigation we hear makes us cringe.

The art of good drink driving mitigation isn’t just what to say but also what not to say. So many people say the wrong thing and end up with a longer ban than they would have got.

Case Study: Mr R was due to appear in Fentham Magistrates Court. He had a reading in breath of 87; more than twice the limit. The guidelines suggested a ban of 22 months. The court had disqualified people in line with the guidelines, and sometimes higher, all morning. Some were represented, some were not. Mr R’s case was called on and we presented his mitigation.

The court discussed the matter and told Mr R: “We wish we could avoid banning you but we can’t. We have to ban you and we are going to give you the minimum ban of 12 months and offer you a course to reduce it by 3 so the total is 9 months!” A reduction in his ban of 13 months. Both Mr R and his father were speechless when we left court.Not all cases are as extreme as that but we are confident we will always get you a reduction in the length of ban.

After mitigating on almost a daily basis for 20 years we know exactly what to say and what things will sway a court in your favour. It starts with good preparation, we take a very detailed statement from you focusing on the 3 main areas of mitigation.

We offer you advice as to what you can do yourself to help get a lenient sentence. Throughout all of this we remember how important it is to you and that you have probably never been in trouble with the police before. We will guide you through the procedure throughout.